I grew up half way between the Book Cliff Mountains and the San Rafael Desert in southeastern Utah.  It was a wonderful place to be outdoors.  I graduated from the College of Eastern Utah and then attended Brigham Young University, earning a bachelor degree in GIS and a master degree in public administration (MPA).  After spending two years north of Chicago working in administration I made a career change.  Now, I am a doctoral candidate studying geography and remote sensing at the University of Kansas.  Remote sensing is the geographic science of studying the earth from images collected by satellites or aircraft.  I am particularly interested in vegetation and ecosystems, a field called biogeography or landscape ecology.

My current research interests center on characterizing and modeling landscape-scale ecosystem function and response to perturbation. In light of possible climate warming, temporal variables are of particular interest. Ecological research indicates that a warmer climate will affect vegetation phenology, or the timing of seasonal patterns. Changes in phenology will directly effect carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, and land use; and will indirectly effect succession, biodiversity, and predator/prey dynamics. Since phenology changes are only discernible at large timeframes, most of my current research deals with time-series analysis of annual datasets. After graduation I plan on continuing my research and teaching in a university setting.